


What Wally does when he’s bored and has his soul stuck in tape recorders.

by Hello_Im_not_a_possum



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Descent into Madness, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Headcanon, In a tape recorder, Isolation, It's not fun, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28995267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Im_not_a_possum/pseuds/Hello_Im_not_a_possum
Summary: With nothing better to do than to pretend that he's doing comedy routines, Wally Franks reminisces about his old coworkers, only to be rudely cut off before he can finish a single 'Show'. Which he should've seen coming, after all, Joey doesn't want the spotlight on him.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	What Wally does when he’s bored and has his soul stuck in tape recorders.

_*Click*_

_“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming.”_

“Ugh... Not dis jokah again...”

If Wally could roll his eyes, he’d do so. Of course, there wasn’t really anything wrong with dreaming, but Joey had made it clear time and time again that the only dreams that would come true were his own. If you wanted YOUR dreams to come true and they didn’t align with his ones perfectly, you were out of luck.

_“Wishing for the impossible is just part of human nature. That’s how I got started. Just a pencil and a dream. We all want everything without having to lift a finger. They say you just have to believe.”_

Henry had already left the inky room, leaving Wally stuck having to listen to Joey’s fluffed-up ‘belief’ slop. Not that the former janitor had any hard feelings towards the old man. Hell, half the time he barely even registered the man’s presence!

Even if he had the energy and wanted to harbor bad feelings towards him, he was far more annoyed with Joey Drew who seemed to just chuck his soul into random items with every loop. Not-so-subtly hinting that because the Janitor made for such a terrible ‘actor’ that he made for a better prop, and half the time he couldn’t even do THAT right.

_“Belief can make you succeed.”_

“Oh Yeah, Well I ‘believed’ I could use my position as a ink creatuh with a functionin’ mind ta help everybody out an’ look where THAT got me!”

_“Belief can make you rich.”_

“Says da guy livin’ in a crapper appartment dan my old Hoovahville shack.”

_“Belief can make you powerful.”_

“Not powahful enough, dat’s for sure.”

_“Why with enough belief, you can even cheat death itself.”_

“Ya didn’t cheat it if it just didn’t want yer slimy a-”

_“Now that... is a beautiful, and positively silly thought.”_

_*Click*_

Whelp, now that Joey’s voice stopped and Wally doubted that Henry would play the tape again until the next run, he was faced with two options now: try to go back to ‘sleep’ now or internally talk to himself until the story ended again. Feeling some new material coming in for his nonexistent comedy routine, he opted for the latter.

“Ya wouldn’t frickin’ believe it unless it happen’d to ya!” The man internally gestured to his imaginary audience in his head. “So I go to dis reunion thang that Joey set up. I’m not expectin’ much; just chattin’ up with old pals, maybe makin’ new ones, just stuff like dat, but when I walk inta da building, suddenly, it all goes up in smoke! Literally! Da building caught on fiyah within da first fifteen minutes of the gosh darn party! And dat pretty much sums up all of Mistah Drew’s relationships and his life in general; da more he gets involved, da quicker bridges ‘n stuff gets burned.”

Wally waited for a reaction with never came, and then continued.

“I could go on an’ on about what a looney da guy was; he had expectations dat could only be met by demigod workaholics who were pumped up on enough caffeine ta kill an army of elephants. Eva wanted ta be ‘employee of da month’? or only work for da houahs ya got in yer contract? well tough luck pal! dis here is mothah-freakin’ Joey Drew Studios, not ‘Joey Drew’s Employees Studios’! Ya don’t get a lick of respect or appreciation an’ ya work ova twice of what ya get paid foah whetheah you like it or not! An’ ta make it worse, he only _like_ liked people who were completely repulsed by him, as in, he’d only romantically pursue someone if dey hated his guts an’ he only _stayed_ intarested if they kept on hatin’ him. What I’m sayin’ is: I’m pretty sure he had da hots for literally everybody who worked at the studio. So I ain’t too sahprised dat he went an’ kidnapped everybody who used ta work here an’ put ‘em all in a unholy-nightmare-cartoon dollhouse ta live out dis little play of his ova an’ ova again-”

Wally didn’t know when he stopped, only that he did abruptly and unwillingly. He partly wondered to himself if Joey could hear him and decided to shut him off or if Henry had just simply completed the chapter and Joey had no need for his ‘prop’ anymore.

Oh well, back to ‘sleep’ he went, hopefully next time he’d wake up as a more interesting item, or something that could move.

* * *

Another day, another dollar. Except, nobody down here knew what day it was, if time moved at all. Let alone got paid to go through this unending nightmare. So for most people down here, it was more like: Another run, another death. Or in Wally’s case, another prop to get his soul halfheartedly shoved into.

The former Janitor tried not to get jealous of the other employees who would wander around the studio freely in their inky forms, he really did. But the only ‘perks’ of being a tape recorder, or a pair of keys, or something along those lines were ‘you don’t get killed repeatedly and you get to keep your mind’. Which are things that shouldn’t get to be seen as privileges, and technically the latter point was incorrect as Wally felt like he was losing his mind from social isolation and being immobile.

Only being able to hear the voices of others through recordings and only when someone came along and pushed a button on you tends to make a guy feel lonely.

_*Click*_

_“So I go to get my dust pan from da hall closet the othah day and guess what? I can’t find my stupid keys.”_

And it doesn’t help much when he’s shoved into his own tape recorders. If he was listening to them normally under a normal context, he’d feel nostalgic about them. Maybe even marvel at how much he had changed over the years. Under this though, he felt powerless, like he hadn’t changed a bit. As if he was still that same stupid, scrawny, scared out of his mind kid who did everything others asked not out of genuine good will but because he was walking the fine line between poverty and homelessness and just that terrified of crossing it when he had a girlfriend and a baby to take care of.

_“It’s like they disappeared inta thin air or something! All I can think is of is that they must’ve fallen inta one of the garbage cans while I was making my rounds last week.”_

“You’re right AND wrong past me, da studio stole your keys an’ plays a bad game of ‘keepaway’ wit them. _Always_ in a trash can, _never_ in the one you’re lookin’ in. I should know, I’ve been in them.”

_“I just hope nobody tells Sammy. Because if he finds out I lost my keys again, I’m outta here.”_

_*Click*_

Wally frowned as his recording ended. ‘I just hope nobody tells Sammy’? If somebody told Sammy, the musician would just sigh, pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration, mutter curses under his breath, and then look the tattler dead in the eyes while asking them what they expected him to do about it before shooing them away so that he could ‘actually focus on the job I’m being paid to do’. All in that order.

The people who he should _really_ fear finding out about him losing his keys were Thomas Conner and or Joey Drew.

The former because he would chew him out mercilessly and keep an uncomfortably close eye on him for days, even if he found his keys on his own! And the latter because in addition to being the guy who signed his checks and could fire him whenever, Joey also had this really bad habit of making people feel guilty over things that either weren’t their fault or had no control over.

...Oh yeah, this was an _old_ old tape, wasn’t it? Way back before Tom even worked with the studio, possibly even before Sammy took him in.

“God I miss dat guy.” He sighed to no one in particular before correcting himself. “The man he used to be before Joey got ‘im hooked on god knows what an’ all the supernatural hoo-hah went down, not da prophet. Don’t get me wrong! Who he is now ain’t too bad all things considered, an’ if they were seperate people an da prophet didn’t talk about his cult every five seconds, I’d like them both. But Sammy T. Lawrence would know what ta do ova here.”

Wally turned to face his imaginary audience, pretending that he was on stage once more.

“For the record, I don’t know who needs ta hear this, but the ‘big scary guy’ at your workplace is very rarely as scary as ya think he is. For a couple of weeks when I first started working my second job, there were two ‘big scary guys’; Norman an’ Sammy. Norman kinda had this thing dat I like ta call “da Polk Effect” Dis was basically: Our man looks scary, sounds scary, has a scary background on papers, has a scary habit of showin’ up outta nowheres, but he isn’t fricking scary aftah ya know him better. I swear on my life da man went from ‘guy I was convinced would break my arms if I looked at him funny’ to ‘guy who I KNOW knows how ta stuff a human corpse and also knows a lotta fun ways ta make one.’ to ‘Dis is my uncle Norman,’ ‘haven’t you only known him for a few weeks?’ -Yeah, but he’s _family_.’ And dat’s just some of life’s happier surprises: Trickin’ ya inta thinkin’ you’re gonna die an den pullin’ da rug out from unda your feet saying: “HAHA! SIKE!” and ya get an uncle who’s got a kinda morbid sense of humor but is great at consolin’ people and givin’ life advice.”

Wally took a break to clear the static out of his mind.

“Now we’ll talk more about Norman some otha time but Sammy? I think he’s legitimately a serial killah. I already know what you’re thinkin: ‘but Wally! Didn’t ya already talk about a guy you thought was scary but wasn’t?’ Sammy doesn’t fall unda ‘da Polk Effect’ dat’s why it’s called ‘da Polk Effect’ and not the ‘Polk an’ Lawrence Effect’. While I don’t fear him nearly as much as I did when I first started workin ‘ere, there’s an uncertainty about him that just gnaws atta person. Lookin’ back, he didn’t look too scary unless you’re easily intimidated by those fancy lookin’ guys who are on da covas of yer wife or girlfriend’s ‘spicier’ romance novels. ...which I was. Yannow da ones; a cascade of long flowing hair, soulful dark eyes, is as chiseled as a Greek statue, wears shirts that are only buttoned up partway so that he’s showin’ off his... ...‘assets’. He has a voice dat’s so silky smooth, it makes silk itself seem rough by comparison when he doesn’t have that irritated tone in it. Idunno much about his past otha den he used ta be a travelin’ musician like his pops an’ he played music at bars beforah Joey picked him up. Before I knew him and moved inta his place, I thought and hoped men that looked like he did weren’t real.”

The tape recorder he was in fell off of it’s shelf, not breaking fortunately, but still getting a bit chipped. However he didn’t let this deter his imaginary comedy routine even if he was upset that the action broke the illusion for a bit.

“I bet you’re wonderin’ why past me came to da conclusion dat he was a serial killah when all it sounds like is dat I was terrified of his bein’ compared ta him an’ declared da worse pick. Simple; First: he was one of those focused an’ serious types, da ones who really latch onto a goal and do not freakin’ let go of it until it is done even if it comes at da expense of himself. ...got dat ‘unrelenting hunter’ thang going on like a lotta your favorite movie slashers.”

“Second: he didn’t seem like people much. If ya talked ta him, he’d be irritated with you and try ta make da conversation go as quickly as possible with bluntness, sarcastic remarks, and if he was feelin’ real moody: would only speak in one-word answers an’ just walk outta da conversation if he didn’t feel like talkin’ no more. If ya were in the same room as him and didn’t leave, you could practically feel him gettin’ more and more annoyed with your presence! I heard from a guy who was stuck in da elevator with him dat Sammy cut da frickin’ top off an’ climbed outta there using the cables just because he couldn’t stand da fact dat da otha guy was chewing gum! We’ve gotta motive: Hates people, possibly to da point of wantin’ ta commit murdah.”

“Third: He was on edge pretty much as long as I knew him an almost neva let his guard down. Had at least five different locks on da front door of his apartment, managed ta rig up dis complicated music-themed puzzle lock for his study AND made a similar one at da studio, now dat I think of it, point two and three feel like they have a connection... Anyway, dis nasty habit of him bein’ jittery all da time got even worse during da later years workin’ at da studio, but that’s because of frickin’ Joey. But the jitters in general... kinda feels as if he’s killed before an’ doesn’t wanna have people find out.”

“And Forth: he was a mad _genius._ Da average Joe ya take off the street doesn’t know how ta use condiments as musical instruments, let alone know how ta make it sound _good_ or think of doin’ that in the first place but this guy legit composed entiah musicals using only condiments, raw meat, and a loaf of bread. Now I might be wrong, but who’s more likely ta kill a man; da one who thinks like an average Joe, or the one who can think of a bunch of ways to use things how they’re not originally meant to be used? And if ya think I’m pullin’ your leg about da ‘sandwich songs’ then I’ll tell ya that not only have I seen him do this with my own eyes, but I’ve bought the record.”

He held up the imaginary record, showing it off to the imaginary crowd who completely erupted into laughter and cheers, Wally waited for the noise to die down a bit before continuing.

“I never really stopped thinkin’ that he was a serial killer, especially aftah da chocolate cake incident, but ova da years I lived with him I kinda just figuahed that if he wanted me and my family dead, we’d already would’ve been dead a thousand times over. Call me irresponsible for puttin’ my family in dat position, call me stupid, call me a nutcase, call me a freakin’ heartless dope! But when you’re a dumb and scared teenager workin’ your butt off tryin’ ta keep you, your girlfriend, and your 4-month old outta the streets and the guy who you’re sure is secretly a serial killer shows up offerin ta share his place with ya rent free on two kinda weird but acceptable conditions shows up, you’re gonna take him up on his offer because apartments in New York are freakin’ expensive and if you’re gonna die, at least you’re gonna die warm.”

“The conditions kinda made sense when ya thought about ‘em: “Don’t tell ANYONE at the studio about this arrangement.” A cynical guy like him would probably think that if I told them, they’d look at him and think dat they found a free meal ticket and free place ta stay. “Don’t follow me when I go out at night.” Worse case senario; he’s committing murder and doesn’t wanna get a witness to da crime. Best case senario; He’s just a ‘Friend of Dorthy’ and doesn’t want me ta know for his own reasons. Most possible senario: both. But I can’t tell for sure because when I got back home from work I eithah helped out with the house, did things wit’ my family, or just clonked out on da nearest flat surface because I was that exhausted. Followin’ him at night never even crossed my mind because I was already dealin’ with a full plate on my hands.”

Another sudden, abrupt stop jolted Wally out of his fantasy comedy club. A stop that signified that the cycle was to begin anew.

“Aww man...” The soul sighed to himself. “I didn’t even get to da juicy parts yet, like da taxidermy lamp!”

* * *

* _Click_ *

_“Now I’m not lookin’ for trouble. It’s just the nature of us projectionists to seek out the dark places.”_

“Huh, it’s been a while since I’ve been thrown inta one of your tapes, Norman.”

_“You see, I’ve learned the ins and outs of this here studio. I know how to avoid being bothered by the likes of this... company. That projectionist, they always say creepin’ around, he’s just lookin’ for trouble. Well trouble or not, I sees everythang. They don’t even know when I’m watchin’.”_

_“Even when I’m right behind ‘em.”_

* _Click_ *

Instinctively, Wally swiftly turned around behind him, forgetting that he was stuck in a tape recorder, forgetting that the ‘bait’ for Norman’s prank had grown stale at least over a decade ago, forgetting that even if the creature his old friend had become had enough of a mind to also have a sense of humor, it wouldn’t know that Wally was stuck in the tape recorders.

Nobody ever seemed to know he was stuck in them, but he couldn’t blame anybody for not figuring it out when he couldn’t move, speak unless someone pressed the ‘play’ button or show any signs of being alive.

“He always liked pullin’ ya leg in weird ways...” Wally sighed nostalgically, turning back to face the nonexistant audience. “Dis guy’s humor always seemed to be on a scale of ‘Halloween veined jokes’ to the horrified ‘what the fuck, Norman?!’ exclamation. Nobody really got most of his jokes, but as a comedy connoisseur myself, I think I figuahed out how dey work: they’re in the same ballpark as puns. The comedic effect isn’t from da joke itself, it’s from da reaction! Nobody _actually_ laughs at stuff like ‘A good acupuncture is a jab well done.’ da person tellin’ da joke is laughin’ at everybody else’s reactions ta it! I mean sure there’s always some outliers to da rule, but I ain’t one of them. But where da split between pun and Norman’s “Jokes” happens is dat for puns it’s the annoyed slash kinda angry ovareaction dat’s the funniest while for Norman’s “Jokes” The reactions he likes lookin’ for always seems to fall unda disgust, horror, disgusted horror, and horrified disgust.”

“His pranks were also in the same vein, take a look at his tape here, It’s bait for his favorite prank; da victim is down on level 14 for some reason, finds the tape, clicks da button, listens ta it, and then he sneaks up behind and taps the victim on the shoulder when ‘even when I’m right behind ’em’ is said, 50/50 chance of sayin’ “Boo” while catchin’ da poor suckah, and then the vitcim is launched right outta their socks and shakin’ on da ceiling! I fell for it the first time I went down ta clean the place, I practically broke a hole in da wall from runnin’ away that fast! And gotta bloody nose from it, he apologized and took me to da infirmary, and we went out for hot dogs later and I think dat was da peakin’ moment of where he went from ‘dear lord he’s terrifying’ to ‘wait, dat’s just a weird but wholesome guy’ in my head- _WOAH THERE!”_

Wally snapped back to reality, jolted to find that someone had picked him off of his set position and was carrying him around, which was honestly a first to him. Ink creatures other than Henry had played him before, sometimes they’d mess around with his play and pause buttons pretending that they were having a conversation with somebody that they thought were dead and missed, and if he was noticeably damaged and a lost one, searcher, or a Boris was nearby, they’d either try to fix him up themselves or bring him to someone who they thought could do it, but he had never been picked up and carried just for the sake of being carried.

He strained his eyes and ears trying to figure out what was going on. He knew for a fact he wasn’t damaged, judging by not-quite-limping-but-almost-limping way the creature who carried him moved, and it sounded like he was surrounded by the sound of whirring projectors. Knowing where the tape was and knowing who liked to reside in that maze the most it didn’t take long for him to figure out who had him. Even if he couldn’t believe it.

“...Norman?”

The former janitor received no answer from the Projectionist. Which he’d normally not mind as the creature had never paid any mind to him until right now, but this time was different! This time the creature did something other than ripping the hearts out of other people and wandering aimlessly in circles.

“Norman, if you can hear me... ...blink twice.”

He looked forward into the maze, trying to see if the projector’s light and to his shock and delight, the Projector headed man did just that! He wasn’t alone anymore! Norman heard him! He could hear him and now neither of them could have to suffer alone anymore! ...Sure Norman’s apparent muteness would make communicating an issue but the pair would have to cross that bridge when they got to it. For now, the man wanted to cry, he wanted to wrap his arms around the inky creature and thank him non stop for freeing him from the madness-inducing isolation he was subjected to.

“You really can hear me!”

As if confirming that the flickering light was not merely a coincidence, Wally swore he saw the projectionist’s light bob up and down a bit, as if nodding ‘yes’.

“This is great! I’ve nevah seen you this lucid before since da ink! What happened?”

The Projectionist tapped on the tape recorder’s play button and then the recorder’s speaker.

“Me? Did I do somethin’?”

He nodded ‘yes’.

“But all I did was pretend I was doin’ a comedy routine...”

Wally had a light bulb moment go off in his head; he was doing a comedy routine that was about Norman while the man himself was in earshot of him. He must’ve jogged the man’s memory! He figured it out! He now knew how he could save the minds his old work friends while stuck in a tape recorder!

And then things cut to black for Wally. Was it the cycle ending and beginning as the pair weren’t the ones controlling it? Was it Joey realizing that the combined forces of Wally and Norman were something he had to end as soon as possible before it got out of his control? Was it Henry shooting down the projectionist and accidentally shooting Wally too? ...That last one was unlikely, he didn’t hear any gunshots. But regardless of whatever it was, it cruelly ripped Wally away from both his new-old friend, and the hope that was just beginning to bloom.


End file.
